Anatu: A Short Story

Citadel of Susa, Babylon

483 B.C.

“It’s going to be you, Anatu. I just know it.”

I smiled tightly at Shala as she clasped my hands, the myriad of rings on our fingers clinking together with the force. Perhaps her comment was genuine. Or perhaps she was waiting for me to return the compliment, to play the game we’d all been playing for months on end, where we pretended to encourage one another when, in reality, each of us was secretly hoping the other might come down with a horrific rash or lose all her hair. 

Because there were over a hundred girls inside this harem.

But there was only one crown.

The motivation behind Shala’s comment didn’t really matter. Because it was going to be me. Becoming queen was my destiny, the reason I was brought here. I’d known it from the moment my family had received the summons from King Xerxes, requesting the most beautiful virgins in the land be brought to his harem. 

I’d been summoned before the king five times, far more than any other woman here. And, each time, I’d won him over heartily. More than once I’d caught the king staring at my long dark hair, kohl-rimmed green eyes, and delicate features enhanced by powders and oils. But all the women in the harem had undergone a year of beauty treatments, including six months with oil of myrrh and six more with perfumes and cosmetics. Even the homeliest among us could be considered beauties now. 

  What set me apart was my charm.

 I sang for the king. I played the harp. I told him stories—tales that made him laugh, cry, and everything in between. I listened, always making sure to ask all the right questions. I did as he requested immediately. And I complimented him profusely but not so much as to seem disingenuous. 

   In short, I did the exact opposite of everything the disgraced former queen Vashti did.

  There was no doubt in my mind that the inhabitants of Babylon would soon be bowing down to a new member of royalty. 

  Me.

 The king was down to his last potential suitress, a rather ordinary woman who went by the name of Esther. She was a nobody. Certainly, no threat to my claim on the title. Oh, she was pretty, don’t get me wrong. But she was too quiet, too meek, too reticent to have any real chance. Among the harem, she was never unfriendly, but she kept to herself, refusing to participate in the gossip or debauchery that bound the rest of us together. 

 So when, not long after her last appointment the king, members of the harem were summoned to the throne room and Shala squeezed my hand, stating the obvious conclusion to His Majesty’s looming decision, what else could I do but smile with false modesty and pretend as if we all had an equal chance for the crown? 

 I wore my finest robe to the assembly, the emerald one that perfectly matched my eyes, with the fringe that brushed delicately over my bare shoulders. Shala helped weave gold beads in my braid, which we then wrapped around my head. I enhanced the beads with several matching accessories: gold bracelets, a gold belt, gold collar-style necklace, and a gold ankle chain. I had to be sure my subjects would never forget the first time they laid eyes on their new queen. And, with this outfit, how could they?

The throne room was packed, the air stuffy with the scent of perfume and body odor. I attempted to find a place toward the front; no need to embarrass anyone forced out the way when my name was called. I kept a tight smile on my lips as I sought my way through a sea of bodies to the platform that held the throne. To my place beside the king.  

  Only…the place beside the king seemed to be already occupied. A woman kneeled beside him, only her dark head of hair visible from my spot in the crowd. 

Dread dropped into my stomach as I made my way forward, not caring about the toes on which I stepped or the elbows I had to dig into ribs to make space. Curses were thrown, as plentiful as dirty looks, and more than once my jewelry got snagged on another’s woman’s trinkets. The murmur of the crowd grew louder; something was happening up front, something I could not see or hear. I pushed forward with greater urgency. Sweat dripped down my back, my face, spoiling my make-up and the scented oils I’d dabbed on my skin. My linen robe clung to my moistened skin. I could feel the stray hairs that had escaped from my braid tickling my neck. 

But I gave only a fleeting thought to my ruined appearance. The fear growing inside was so much worse.

A great cheer erupted from the crowd, freezing my sweat. I did not want to move forward; I could not bring myself to stop. 

I burst through the last row of spectators just in time to see King Xerxes place a golden crown on top of the woman’s head. She rose then, her smile both thrilled and terrified as she glanced around the room at the elated crowd. 

Bile rose in my throat. I wanted to scream. I wanted to yell. I wanted to fall right through the floor, to become invisible, never seen in all of Babylon again. But it did not matter what I wanted. For, just at that moment, the woman’s dark eyes locked into mine. 

And there was nothing else I could do but lower my head, a show of pained reverence to the newly crowned Queen Esther. 

****

I should have been gracious. Should have at least faked being gracious, like all the other women in the harem, the ones who smiled at Esther—excuse me, Queen Esther—and hugged her and offered up a nauseating amount of congratulations. I should have accepted my fate as one of the king’s concubines; with guaranteed food, shelter, and clothing, there certainly were worse things in life to be. But I couldn’t. 

I didn’t know how she’d pulled it off. She was mousy, prudish, and way too self-effacing for a king like Xerxes. But I knew one thing: she wasn’t royalty. She was a thief. 

That crown was mine. It was my destiny, the reason I was brought here. And Esther stole it. 

And I was going to do everything in my power to get it back.

But for all my scheming and plotting, the opportunity to destroy Esther came from a place I least suspected: Haman, a pompous and rather disagreeable official in King Xerxes’s court. The rumor around the Citadel was that Haman was fuming over a perceived slight from a Jew named Mordecai. Because he held the king’s ear, Haman was somehow able to convince His Majesty that the Jews were a threat to the kingdom and must be destroyed. Even I gasped when I read dispatch calling for the “annihilation” of the Jews—men, women, and children. Such brutality was shocking, even for King Xerxes. 

And yet my distress quickly faded when I happened upon the queen one day deep in conversation with Hathach, one of the royal eunuchs tasked with attending her. She didn’t see me; the late afternoon sun cloaked the hallway in shadows, and I ducked into a doorframe before anyone became aware of my presence. I was suspicious even before snippets of their conversation reached my ears; there was no reason for Esther to be in this part of the Citadel. She was far too important to be seen anywhere near the harem now.

And yet here she was.

“What word from Mordecai? Does he still dress in sackcloth and ashes?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” came the answer from the eunuch. “I tried once more to give him the clothes you sent, but he refused. He bid me only pass along his proposal to you once again.” 

From my spot in the shadows, I could see Esther’s jaw slacken, her face grow pale. “But I’ve already told him—”

“He also asked me to pass along this.” The eunuch paused, biting his lip as if the next words pained him. “He…he said, ‘Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?’”

The two of them continued in hushed whispers, but I heard none of it, so dizzy was my mind with the new information I’d received. I cared not for Mordecai or the unexpected drama seeming to play out between him and Esther. The only thing that mattered was this:

Esther—Queen Esther, the king’s prized jewel—was a Jew.

I could barely believe my luck. It felt as if the gods were smiling at me in this moment, reaffirming the truth that I—not Esther—was meant to be queen. The world was righting itself. Once the king became aware of Esther’s background, she would fall victim to his decree, sealed by his signet ring and thus irreversible, lest he risk an uprising among the people. The king would, of course, be devastated; he seemed to genuinely care for her. But I would make sure I was there to assuage him, to comfort him, to reassure him of the validity of his actions. 

And, when he was ready, remind him of the rightful head that should have worn the crown all along. 

Normally, it was a risk to appear before the king without being summoned. Death was a common fate among those who dared interrupt His Majesty in his inner court. But I pulled some strings—a concubine was not completely without power—and soon found myself outside his throne room door, knotted with anticipation. I’d worn the crimson dress, one I knew he adored, and arranged my hair half up and half down, perfumed with the floral oils of which I knew he was so fond. But still, for all the care I had taken with my outward appearance, I knew it was my demeanor of which I had to be most mindful: the king could sense no glee within me as I delivered the news about his beloved’s ethnicity. Taking a deep breath, I rearranged my face into a mask of regret and humility before daring to open the heavy wooden doors. 

When the official had granted my audience with the king, I had expected to find him upon his throne, alone, awaiting my company. I had not expected a feast. 

And I had certainly not expected to see Queen Esther. 

I froze inside the doorway, unable to take another step forward. Yet neither the king nor Haman, the other two members of the company, seemed to register my appearance. Instead, their eyes were transfixed on the woman who stood before them, head bowed, as meek and quiet as ever, but with a voice that seemed to echo off the cavernous walls:

“If I have found favor with you, O king, and if it pleases your majesty, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my request. For I and my people have been sold for destruction and slaughter and annihilation.”

She was confessing. 

Esther was confessing her heritage to the king. 

She was not being duplicitous. She was not lying. Nor was she was hiding or cowering. She was standing—respectfully, soberly—but standing. Boldly risking her life. For her people.

For her God. 

Though she continued to speak, I was no longer listening. Instead, I found myself backing out of the room, mind racing, heart pounding inside my ears. I only made it halfway down the hallway before my knees gave out. With deep, chest wracking breaths, I slid down to the stone floor, gripping strands of my hair with my hands. A thousand different emotions swirled inside me, churning my stomach. There was anger, defeat, frustration, and disappointment that the plan—the plan that would have restored my destiny—had collapsed into nothing. But equally as strong were the feelings of bewilderment, of confusion and disbelief. 

What sort of woman would put herself in that kind of danger? What strength lay hidden beneath Esther’s seemingly mild exterior? What courage? What faith? 

And…in what kind of God?

I’d gone through the motions of our Babylonian religion, offering up sacrifices and prayers to the hundreds of deities I’d been taught to worship. And yet never, even in my wildest dreams, would I have considered sacrificing myself. If it ever came to endangering my life, Marduk—or any of the other gods—would be long gone. They’d never really done anything for me any way. 

And yet here stood Esther. Unflinchingly proclaiming her identity in her God…and brazenly asking for respite for both her and her people. 

The contrast between the two of us shook me to my core. All this time I’d been so sure that I had been the one who deserved to be queen. Be that as it may, I knew, deep within, that I never could have done what I’d just witnessed Queen Esther do.

I returned to the harem subdued but rattled, unable to free myself from the unease that had weaseled its way into my soul. The news of Haman’s execution, the subsequent revenge of the Jews, and the establishment of a new Jewish holiday washed over me like spoiled water; none of it soaked in. None of it cleansed. Queen Esther and the Jews had been saved…but I had been irretrievably broken. 

Until now. 

Today, I have requested an audience with the queen, one she has graciously approved. And I am going to attempt to express to her all the things that have been needling my heart. I want to confess the ugliness within me. I want to know how she did what she did. I want to know her.

And I want to know her God. 

I had been so sure that arriving at this harem and being crowned queen was my destiny. But I was wrong; it was Esther’s. Always had been. Because it was only she that could have stopped the senseless and inhumane massacre of her people. And yet there feels like something else inside this story, something that involves me, something that tells me my position here, inside the harem, bearing witness to these events, was not without purpose either. 

I won’t stop searching until I find out what it is. 

For as I knock on the door to the queen’s quarters, that long ago whispered conversation echoes inside my head: “And who knows that you have come to the position for such a time as this?”